John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was born on February 27, 1902. He was the second of four children. He was born in Salinas, California. While John Steinbeck was growing up in Salinas it was a farming town. In the summers Steinbeck would work out in the beet fields and notice how badly the migrants were living. After high school Steinbeck attended Stanford University. There he studied for six years but never got a degree.